Narendra Modi does not believe in participatory democracy

Spokesperson of All India Congress Committee (AICC), Abhishek Manu Singhvi, took a dig at BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for spreading lies. He alleged that the Gujarat chief minister was a person who did not believe in participatory democracy. Singhvi, however, accepted that though UPA-II performed well compared to the NDA government, it lagged behind UPA-I in performance.

The AICC spokesperson said that the Gujarat assembly meets only for a minimum 22 days in a year, which is mandatory under the Constitution. “Moreover, he does not participate in debates and discussions in the House, which means he does not believe in participatory democracy,” said Singhvi, while speaking to media here on Sunday.

He also criticised Modi for false propaganda about being number one in investments, per capita income, sports and other things. Gujarat is at number five in investments, number eight in per capita income, number 11 in software export and again number five in elevating people from BPL status.

The senior advocate practicing in the Supreme Court also said that the Modi government had brought down the Gujarat growth story. Between 1981 and 2001, when Congress was in power for majority of the period, the average growth rate of Gujarat was at around 16%. However, during Modi-rule Gujarat's growth rate came down to 9 to 10% which could be called development, said Singhvi.

He also sent an RSVP to Modi as 'Man On Damage to India' and BJP as 'Bharat Jalao Party' and described the Gujarat CM as a cocktail of dictatorial tendencies, development distortion, crony capitalism, divisive politics and trust deficit.

Singhvi also believes that the victory of BJP in recent assembly elections in three states cannot be taken as an indicator of Modi wave. “One should remember that the Vajpayee government preponed the parliamentary elections in 2004 as they had won three assembly elections in September 2003, but the rest is history,” said Singhvi.